Contents

Saladin was appointed commander of the Syrian troops and vizier of the Fatimid caliph in Egypt in 1169 and established the Ayyubid Sultanate soon after. He slowly began extending his dominion over Muslim emirates in Syria formerly held by Nur ad-Din. In 1177, Saladin mounted a major invasion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from Egypt and was thoroughly defeated by Baldwin IV (the "Leper King") at the Battle of Montgisard. Henceforth, the Muslim leader learned to respect the young Crusader king's military talents. In 1179, Saladin defeated Baldwin at the Battle of Marj Ayyun in Lebanon.

In 1180, Saladin arranged a truce between himself and two Christian leaders, King Baldwin and Raymond III of Tripoli. But two years later, the lord of the Transjordan fief of Kerak, Reynald of Châtillon, attacked Muslim caravans passing through his lands. Resenting this violation of the truce, Saladin immediately assembled his army and prepared to strike.

On 11 May 1182 Saladin left Egypt and led his army north toward Damascus via Ayla on the Red Sea. As he moved north, his army entered lands belonging to the fiefs of Montreal (Shobak) and Kerak. Saladin encamped at Jerba and launched raids on Montreal, which did great damage to the crops. At a council of war, the Crusader princes pondered two courses of action. They could move across the Jordan River to protect the exposed fiefs. Raymond of Tripoli argued against this strategy, saying that would leave too few soldiers to protect the kingdom. The aggressive Baldwin overruled Raymond and the Crusader army moved to Petra in the Transjordan, thus defending the lands of his vassal.

Meanwhile, Saladin's nephew, Farrukh Shah, led a force from Damascus to ravage the now-undefended Latin Principality of Galilee. In this destructive raid, the emirs of Bosra, Baalbek and Homs and their followers joined Farrukh. Before returning to Damascus, the raiders seized the cave castle of Habis Jaldak in the Yarmuk Valley from its weak Frankish garrison.

Out in the Transjordan, the main armies still faced each other. A Frankish plan was proposed to occupy the water points, thus forcing Saladin into the desert, but the Crusaders were unable to carry this out. The Muslim commander moved north and reached Damascus on 22 June. The Crusaders recrossed the Jordan into Galilee and concentrated their army at La Sephorie, six miles northwest of Nazareth.

After a three-week breathing spell, Saladin marched out of the Damascus on 11 July and advanced to Al-Quhwana on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee. From there he sent forces to raid the Jordan valley, Grand Gerin (Jenin) and the district of St Jean d'Acre. One raiding column attacked Bethsan but was driven off. Saladin took his main army, crossed to the west side of the Jordan and moved south along the high ground.

As soon as reconnaissance patrols revealed the Muslim leader's maneuver, the Frankish leaders determined to move their field army into close contact with Saladin's army. After adding reinforcements by stripping nearby castles of most of their garrisons, the Crusader army marched to Tiberias then turned south. In the vicinity of Belvoir castle (Arabic name: Kaukab al-Hawa), Baldwin's men spent the night in their closely guarded camp. The next morning, the Ayyubid army confronted the Crusaders.

The Franks advanced in their usual formation when in contact with their enemies. The infantry marched in close order, with the spearmen guarding against direct attack and archers keeping the Saracens at a distance. Shielded by the footmen, the cavalry conformed to the pace of the infantry, ready to drive back their enemies with controlled charges. The Crusaders had successfully used this method of fighting in the Battle of Shaizar (1111) and the Battle of Bosra (1147).

For their part, Saladin's soldiers tried to disrupt the Crusader formation by raining arrows from their horse archers, by partial attacks and by feigned retreats. "It is likely that from time to time the Turks came to close quarters, and this has caused some writers to refer to the action as a battle. It is more probable that although there were short episodes in which there was hard fighting, there was no pitched engagement."[1] On this occasion, the Franks could neither be tempted into fighting a pitched battle nor stopped. Unable to make an impression on the Latin host, Saladin broke off the running battle and returned to Damascus.

Saladin was not finished yet. He had arranged for an Egyptian fleet to attack Beirut. As soon as his scouts had spotted the fleet from the Lebanese mountains, Saladin left Damascus, marched through the Munaitra Pass and laid siege to Beirut. At the same time, a force from Egypt raided the southern part of the kingdom, doing further local damage. Baldwin recalled his army to La Sephorie, then marched to Tyre. From there he appropriated shipping and organized an attempt to relieve the port of Beirut by both land and sea. When Saladin heard of these efforts, he raised the siege and ended his campaign in August 1182.

The tireless Saladin spent the next twelve months campaigning in Syria and Mesopotamia, adding Aleppo and a number of other cities to his growing empire. He would invade the Kingdom of Jerusalem again in September 1183. Free of his adversary, in October 1182 Baldwin recovered Habis Jaldak in the Transjordan. In December, Raymond of Tripoli launched a raid in the same area and Baldwin took a mounted force within a few miles of Damascus. But these were mere pinpricks. Not long afterward, Baldwin became completely incapacitated by leprosy and was forced to appoint his sister Sibylla's husband Guy of Lusignan as regent.

The Crusaders kept their enemies from capturing any strongholds and kept their field army intact, so they succeeded in their strategic purpose. But Saladin's raiders managed to inflict great damage on the countryside. Frankish overlords depended on the rents of their tenants, but these could not be collected if the crops were ruined. Without money, the lords could not pay their soldiers. Therefore, constant devastations would ultimately reduce the Frankish kingdom to a state of helplessness.

Saladin forced the Crusaders into a cruel dilemma. They could concentrate their field army to resist the Muslim main army. Or, they could guard against damaging raids. They could not do both because their military power was limited. "A single mistake on the part of a Frankish commander could lose the field army, the fortresses, and with them the whole kingdom."[2] This finally happened in 1187 at the Battle of Hattin. First, the campaign and Battle of Al-Fule would be fought.

1.
Crusades
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The First Crusade arose after a call to arms in a 1095 sermon by Pope Urban II. Urban urged military support for the Byzantine Empire and its Emperor, Alexios I, the response to Urbans preaching by people of many different classes across Western Europe established the precedent for later Crusades. Volunteers became Crusaders by taking a vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the church. Some were hoping for apotheosis at Jerusalem, or forgiveness from God for all their sins, others participated to satisfy feudal obligations, gain glory and honour, or find opportunities for economic and political gain. Many modern Historians have polarised opinions of the Crusaders behaviour under Papal sanction, to some it was incongruous with the stated aims and implied moral authority of the papacy and the Crusades, to the extent that on occasions that the Pope excommunicated Crusaders. Crusaders often pillaged as they travelled, while their leaders retained control of captured territory rather than returning it to the Byzantines. During the Peoples Crusade thousands of Jews were murdered in what is now called the Rhineland massacres, Constantinople was sacked during the Fourth Crusade rendering the reunification of Christendom impossible. These tales consequently galvanised medieval romance, philosophy and literature, but the Crusades also reinforced the connection between Western Christendom, feudalism, and militarism. Crusade is not a term, instead the terms iter for journey or peregrinatio for pilgrimage were used. Not until the word crucesignatus for one who was signed with the cross was adopted at the close of the century was specific terminology developed. The Middle English equivalents were derived from old French, croiserie in the 13th–15th centuries, croisade appeared in English c1575, and continued to be the leading form till c1760. By convention historians adopt the term for the Christian holy wars from 1095, the Crusades in the Holy Land are traditionally counted as nine distinct campaigns, numbered from the First Crusade of 1095–99 to the Ninth Crusade of 1271/2. Usage of the term Crusade may differ depending on the author, pluralists use the term Crusade of any campaign explicitly sanctioned by the reigning Pope. This reflects the view of the Roman Catholic Church that every military campaign given Papal sanction is equally valid as a Crusade, regardless of its cause, justification, generalists see Crusades as any and all holy wars connected with the Latin Church and fought in defence of their faith. Popularists limit the Crusades to only those that were characterised by popular groundswells of religious fervour – that is, only the First Crusade, Medieval Muslim historiographers such as Ali ibn al-Athir refer to the Crusades as the Frankish Wars. The term used in modern Arabic, ḥamalāt ṣalībiyya حملات صليبية, campaigns of the cross, is a loan translation of the term Crusade as used in Western historiography. The Islamic prophet Muhammad founded Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, the resulting unified polity in the seventh and eighth centuries led to a rapid expansion of Arab power. This influence stretched from the northwest Indian subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, tolerance, trade, and political relationships between the Arabs and the Christian states of Europe waxed and waned

2.
Belvoir Fortress
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Belvoir Fortress is a Crusader fortress in northern Israel, on a hill 20 kilometres south of the Sea of Galilee. Gilbert of Assailly, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, began construction of the castle in 1168, the restored fortress is located in Belvoir National Park. It is the best-preserved Crusader fortress in Israel, the Knights Hospitaller purchased the site from Velos, a French nobleman, in 1168. Standing 500 metres above the Jordan River Valley, the plateau commanded the route from Gilead into the Kingdom of Jerusalem, to the north is the Sea of Galilee and west are hills. The site of Belvoir Castle dominated the area, and in the words of Abu Shama the castle is, set admidst the stars like an eagles nest. As soon as the Knights Hospitaller purchased the land they began construction of Belvoir Castle, while Gilbert of Assailly was Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller the order gained around thirteen new castles, among which Belvoir was the most important. The fortress of Belvoir served as an obstacle to the Muslim goal of invading the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem from the east. It withstood an attack by Muslim forces in 1180, during the campaign of 1182, the Battle of Belvoir Castle was fought nearby between King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and Saladin. Following Saladins victory over the Crusaders at the battle of the Horns of Hattin, the siege lasted a year and a half, until the defenders surrendered on 5 January 1189. An Arab governor occupied it until 1219 when the Ayyubid ruler in Damascus had slighted, in 1241 Belvoir was ceded to the Franks, who controlled it until 1263. In modern times it became an Arab village, Kawkab al-Hawa, the Arab buildings on the site were demolished by the Israeli authorities between 1963 and 1968. The Hebrew name, Kochav Hayarden, meaning Star of the Jordan, preserves the name of Kochava – a Jewish village which existed nearby during the Roman, after the end of the Second World War, the study of Crusader castles experienced a lull. Syria, for instance, declared independence in 1946 and had money to spare for archaeology. In Israel, the study of Crusader castles developed under Joshua Prawer and its most significant discovery was made at Belvoir. Between 1963 and 1968 the Israel Department of Antiquities carried out excavations at the castle, before the investigations, it had been assumed that Belvoir was a simple castle, with just a single enclosure. Excavations in the 1960s demonstrated the complex nature of military architecture in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Belvoirs design bore similarities to that of a Roman castra, the enclosure was rectangular with towers at the corners. Belvoir is an example of the concentric castle plan, which was widely used in later crusader castles

3.
Israel
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Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. The country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israels economy and technology center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, in 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, next year, the Jewish Agency declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and it extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israels occupation of the Palestinian territories is the worlds longest military occupation in modern times, efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in peace. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have successfully been signed, the population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2017 to be 8,671,100 people. It is the worlds only Jewish-majority state, with 74. 8% being designated as Jewish, the countrys second largest group of citizens are Arabs, at 20. 8%. The great majority of Israeli Arabs are Sunni Muslims, including significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins, other minorities include Arameans, Armenians, Assyrians, Black Hebrew Israelites, Circassians, Maronites and Samaritans. Israel also hosts a significant population of foreign workers and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia, including illegal migrants from Sudan, Eritrea. In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish, Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. The prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature, Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with the 35th-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2016. The country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentage of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. The country has the highest standard of living in the Middle East and the third highest in Asia, in the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term Israeli to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel. The name Israel in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, jacobs twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. The earliest known artifact to mention the word Israel as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt. The area is known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam

4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation

5.
Kingdom of Jerusalem
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The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was a crusader state established in the Southern Levant by Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, the sometimes so-called First Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted from 1099 to 1187, when it was almost entirely overrun by Saladin. This second kingdom is called the Second Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Kingdom of Acre. Three other crusader states founded during and after the First Crusade were located north, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch. While all three were independent, they were tied to Jerusalem. Beyond these to the north and west lay the states of Armenian Cilicia, further east, various Muslim emirates were located which were ultimately allied with the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. Jerusalem itself fell to Saladin in 1187, and in the 13th century the kingdom was reduced to a few cities along the Mediterranean coast. In this period, the kingdom was ruled by the Lusignan dynasty of the Kingdom of Cyprus, dynastic ties also strengthened with Tripoli, Antioch, and Armenia. The kingdom was soon dominated by the Italian city-states of Venice and Genoa. Emperor Frederick II claimed the kingdom by marriage, but his presence sparked a war among the kingdoms nobility. The kingdom became more than a pawn in the politics and warfare of the Ayyubid and Mamluk dynasties in Egypt, as well as the Khwarezmian. The Mamluk sultans Baibars and al-Ashraf Khalil eventually reconquered all the remaining crusader strongholds, the kingdom was ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse, although the crusaders themselves and their descendants were an elite Catholic minority. They imported many customs and institutions from their homelands in Western Europe, the kingdom also inherited oriental qualities, influenced by the pre-existing customs and populations. The majority of the inhabitants were native Christians, especially Greek and Syrian Orthodox, as well as Sunni. The native Christians and Muslims, who were a lower class, tended to speak Greek and Arabic, while the crusaders spoke French. There were also a number of Jews and Samaritans. According to the Jewish writer Benjamin of Tudela, who travelled through the kingdom around 1170, since sets a lower bound for the Samaritan population at 1,500, since the contemporary Tolidah, a Samaritan chronicle, also mentions communities in Gaza and Acre. The First Crusade was preached at the Council of Clermont in 1095 by Pope Urban II, however, the main objective quickly became the control of the Holy Land

6.
Ayyubid dynasty
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The Ayyubid dynasty was a Muslim dynasty of Kurdish origin, founded by Saladin and centered in Egypt. The dynasty ruled much of the Middle East during the 12th and 13th centuries, Saladin had been the vizier of Fatimid Egypt before toppling the Fatimids in 1171. Three years later, he proclaimed himself sultan following the death of his former master, most of the Kingdom of Jerusalem fell to Saladin after his victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. However, the Crusaders regained control of Palestines coastline in the 1190s, by then, local Muslim dynasties had driven out the Ayyubids from Yemen, the Hejaz, and parts of Mesopotamia. After his death in 1249, as-Salih Ayyub was succeeded in Egypt by al-Muazzam Turanshah, however, the latter was soon overthrown by the Mamluk generals who had repelled a Crusader invasion of the Nile Delta. This effectively ended Ayyubid power in Egypt, attempts by the emirs of Syria, led by an-Nasir Yusuf of Aleppo, in 1260, the Mongols sacked Aleppo and conquered the Ayyubids remaining territories soon after. The Mamluks, who expelled the Mongols, maintained the Ayyubid principality of Hama until deposing its last ruler in 1341 and this period was also marked by an Ayyubid process of vigorously strengthening Sunni Muslim dominance in the region by constructing numerous madrasas in their major cities. The progenitor of the Ayyubid dynasty, Najm ad-Din Ayyub ibn Shadhi, belonged to the Kurdish Rawadiya tribe, Ayyubs ancestors settled in the town of Dvin, in northern Armenia. The Rawadiya were the dominant Kurdish group in the Dvin district, circumstances became unfavorable in Dvin when Turkish generals seized the town from its Kurdish prince. Shadhi left with his two sons Ayyub and Asad ad-Din Shirkuh and his friend Mujahid ad-Din Bihruz—the military governor of northern Mesopotamia under the Seljuks—welcomed him and appointed him governor of Tikrit. After Shadhis death, Ayyub succeeded him in governance of the city with the assistance of his brother Shirkuh, together they managed the affairs of the city well, gaining them popularity from the local inhabitants. In the meantime, Imad ad-Din Zangi, the ruler of Mosul, was defeated by the Abbasids under Caliph al-Mustarshid, in his bid to escape the battlefield to Mosul via Tikrit, Zangi took shelter with Ayyub and sought his assistance in this task. Ayyub complied and provided Zangi and his companions boats to cross the Tigris River, as a consequence for assisting Zangi, the Abbasid authorities sought punitive measures against Ayyub. Simultaneously, in an incident, Shirkuh killed a close confidant of Bihruz on charges that he had sexually assaulted a woman in Tikrit. The Abbasid court issued arrest warrants for both Ayyub and Shirkuh, but before the brothers could be arrested, they departed Tikrit for Mosul in 1138. When they arrived in Mosul, Zangi provided them all the facilities they needed. Ayyub was made commander of Baalbek and Shirkuh entered the service of Zangis son, according to historian Abdul Ali, it was under the care and patronage of Zangi that the Ayyubid family rose to prominence. In 1164, Nur al-Din dispatched Shirkuh to lead a force to prevent the Crusaders from establishing a strong presence in an increasingly anarchic Egypt

7.
Baldwin IV of Jerusalem
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Baldwin IV, called the Leper, reigned as King of Jerusalem from 1174 until his death. He was the son of Amalric I of Jerusalem and his first wife, Baldwins father died in 1174 and the boy was crowned at the age of 13, on 15 July that year. In his minority the kingdom was ruled by two regents, first Miles of Plancy, though unofficially, and then Raymond III of Tripoli. In 1175, Raymond III, the king of Jerusalem. Sibylla was being raised by her great-aunt Ioveta in the convent of Bethany, while Isabella was at the court of her mother, Raymonds regency ended on the second anniversary of Baldwins coronation, the young king was now of age. He did not ratify Raymonds treaty with Saladin, but instead went raiding towards Damascus and he appointed his maternal uncle, Joscelin III, the titular count of Edessa, seneschal after he was ransomed. Joscelin was his closest male relative who did not have a claim to the throne, so he was judged a reliable supporter, indeed, William arrived in early October and became Count of Jaffa and Ascalon upon his marriage. In 1174, at the age of 13, Baldwin successfully attacked Damascus in order to draw the Muslim Sultan Saladin away from Aleppo. In 1176 he was leading men in the front in similar attacks at Damascus, Baldwin also planned an attack on Saladins power-base in Egypt. He sent Raynald of Châtillon to Constantinople as envoy to Manuel I Comnenus, Raynald had recently been released from captivity in Aleppo, Manuel paid his ransom, since he was the stepfather of the Empress Maria of Antioch. Manuel sought the restoration of the Orthodox patriarchate in the kingdom, Reynald returned early in 1177, and was rewarded with marriage to Stephanie of Milly, a widowed heiress. This made him lord of Kerak and Oultrejourdain, Baldwin tried to ensure that Reynald and William of Montferrat co-operated on the defence of the South. However, in June, William died at Ascalon after several weeks illness, in August the kings first cousin, Philip of Flanders, came to Jerusalem on crusade. Philip demanded to wed Baldwins sisters to his vassals, Philip, as Baldwins closest male kin on his paternal side, claimed authority superseding Raymonds regency. The Haute Cour refused to agree to this, with Baldwin of Ibelin publicly insulting Philip, offended, Philip left the kingdom, campaigning instead for the Principality of Antioch. The Ibelin family were patrons of the dowager queen Maria, in November, Baldwin and Raynald of Châtillon defeated Saladin with the help of the Knights Templar at the celebrated Battle of Montgisard. That same year, Baldwin allowed his stepmother the dowager-queen to marry Balian of Ibelin, with Marias patronage, the Ibelins tried to have the princesses Sibylla and Isabella married into their family as well. In 1179, the met with some military setbacks in the north

8.
Balian of Ibelin
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Balian of Ibelin was a crusader noble of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century. Balian was the youngest son of Barisan of Ibelin, and brother of Hugh and his father, a knight in the County of Jaffa, had been rewarded with the lordship of Ibelin after the revolt of Hugh II of Le Puiset. Barisan married Helvis of Ramla, heiress of the lordship of Ramla. Balians name was also Barisan, but he seems to have adapted the name to the Old French Balian c, 1175–76, he is sometimes known as Balian the Younger or Balian II when his father is also referred to as Balian. He is also called Balian of Ramla or Balian of Nablus, in Latin his name appears variously as Balian, Barisan, Barisanus, Balianus, Balisan, and Balisanus. Arabic sources call him Balian ibn Barzan, which translates Balian and his precise year of birth is unknown, but he was of the age of majority by 1158, when he first appears in charters, having been described as under-age in 1156. After the death of Balians eldest brother Hugh c,1169, the castle of Ibelin passed to the next brother, Baldwin. Baldwin, preferring to remain lord of Ramla, gave it to Balian, Balian held Ibelin as a vassal of his brother, and indirectly as a rear-vassal of the king, from whom Baldwin held Ramla. That year Balian also married Maria Comnena, widow of King Amalric I and he received the lordship of Nablus, which had been a dower gift to Maria following her marriage to Amalric. In 1183 Balian and Baldwin supported Raymond against Guy of Lusignan, husband of Amalrics elder daughter Sibylla and by now regent for Baldwin IV, the king had his 5-year-old nephew Baldwin of Montferrat crowned as co-king in his own lifetime, in an attempt to prevent Guy from ascending. Shortly before his death in spring 1185, Baldwin IV ordered a formal crown-wearing by his nephew at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was Balian himself—a notably tall man—who carried the child Baldwin V on his shoulder at the ceremony, soon after, the eight-year-old boy became sole king. When he, too, died in 1186, Balian and Maria, with Raymonds support, put forward Marias daughter Isabella, then about 14, however, her husband, Humphrey IV of Toron, refused the crown and swore fealty to Guy. Balian reluctantly also paid homage to Guy, while his brother refused to do so, Baldwin placed Balian in charge of raising his son Thomas, the future lord of Ramla, who did not go with his father to Antioch. Balian remained in the kingdom, as an advisor to Guy, at the end of 1186, Saladin, the sultan of Egypt and Damascus, threatened the borders of the kingdom after Guys ally Raynald of Châtillon, Lord of Oultrejordain, had attacked a Muslim caravan. Saladin was allied with the garrison of Tiberias in the north of the kingdom, the first embassy was a failure and the situation remained unchanged throughout the early months of 1187. After Easter of that year, Balian, Gerard of Ridefort, Roger de Moulins, Reginald of Sidon, during the journey they stopped at Balians fief of Nablus, and Balian planned to remain behind briefly while the others went ahead. On May 1, the Templars and Hospitallers were defeated by Saladins son al-Afdal at the Battle of Cresson, Balian was still a day behind, and had also stopped at Sebastea to celebrate a feast day

9.
Saladin
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An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known as Saladin, was the first sultan of Egypt and Syria and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin led the Muslim military campaign against the Crusader states in the Levant, at the height of his power, his sultanate included Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen and other parts of North Africa. When Saladins uncle Shirkuh died in 1169, al-Adid appointed Saladin vizier, in the following years, he led forays against the Crusaders in Palestine, commissioned the successful conquest of Yemen, and staved off pro-Fatimid rebellions in Upper Egypt. Not long after Nur ad-Dins death in 1174, Saladin launched his conquest of Syria, by mid-1175, Saladin had conquered Hama and Homs, inviting the animosity of his former Zengid lords, who had been the official rulers of Syria. Soon after, he defeated the Zengid army at the Battle of the Horns of Hama and was proclaimed the Sultan of Egypt. Saladin made further conquests in northern Syria and Jazira, escaping two attempts on his life by the Assassins, before returning to Egypt in 1177 to address issues there. By 1182, Saladin completed the conquest of Muslim Syria after capturing Aleppo, although the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem continued to exist until the late 13th century, its defeat at Hattin marked a turning point in its conflict with the Muslim powers of the region. Saladin died in Damascus in 1193, having given away much of his wealth to his subjects. He is buried in an adjacent to the Umayyad Mosque. Saladin has become a prominent figure in Muslim, Arab, Turkish and Kurdish culture, Saladin was born in Tikrit in modern-day Iraq. His personal name was Yusuf, Salah ad-Din is a laqab and his family was of Kurdish ancestry, and had originated from the city of Dvin in medieval Armenia. The Rawadid tribe he hailed from had been assimilated into the Arabic-speaking world by this time. Ayyub provided ferries for the army and gave refuge in Tikrit. According to Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad, Saladin was born on the night his family left Tikrit. In 1139, Ayyub and his moved to Mosul, where Imad ad-Din Zengi acknowledged his debt. After the death of Zengi in 1146, his son, Nur ad-Din, became the regent of Aleppo, Saladin, who now lived in Damascus, was reported to have a particular fondness for the city, but information on his early childhood is scarce. About education, Saladin wrote children are brought up in the way in which their elders were brought up, several sources claim that during his studies he was more interested in religion than joining the military. Another factor which may have affected his interest in religion was that, during the First Crusade, in addition to Islam, Saladin had a knowledge of the genealogies, biographies, and histories of the Arabs, as well as the bloodlines of Arabian horses

10.
Battle of Montgisard
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The Battle of Montgisard was fought between the Ayyubids and the Kingdom of Jerusalem on November 25,1177. The 16-year-old King Baldwin IV, seriously afflicted by leprosy, led an out-numbered Christian force against the army of Saladin, the Arab force was routed and their casualties were massive, and only a fraction managed to flee to safety. Meanwhile, Saladin planned his own invasion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from Egypt and it is also uncertain whether the so-called knights included mounted sergeants or squires, or whether they were true knights. Just as uncertain are the numbers of their opponents, an 1181 review listed Saladins Mamluk forces at 6,976 Ghulams and 1,553 Qaraghulams. However, there would have been additional soldiers available in Syria and elsewhere, whether these would have added up to a total of 26,000 reported by William of Tyre is impossible to say. Saladin left part of his army to besiege Gaza and a force at Ascalon. Accompanying Baldwin was Raynald of Châtillon, lord of Oultrejordain, who had just been released from captivity in Aleppo in 1176, Raynald was a fierce enemy of Saladin and was King Baldwins second-in-command. Also with the army were Baldwin of Ibelin, his brother Balian, Reginald of Sidon, odo de St Amand, Master of the Knights Templar, came with 84 Templar knights. Another Templar force attempted to meet Baldwin at Ascalon, but they remained besieged at Gaza, Saladin continued his march towards Jerusalem, thinking that Baldwin would not dare to follow him with so few men. He attacked Ramla, Lydda and Arsuf, but because Baldwin was supposedly not a danger, he allowed his army to be spread out over a large area, pillaging and foraging. However, unknown to Saladin, the forces he had left to subdue the King had been insufficient, the Christians, led by the King, pursued the Muslims along the coast, finally catching their enemies at Mons Gisardi, near Ramla. The location is disputed, as Ramla was a region that included the town under the same name. Malcolm Barber equates Mons Gisardi with the mound of al-Safiya, al-Safiya means white and, indeed, the Es-Safi hill is white with the foundations of a Crusader castle recently found at the top, called Blanchegarde. Ibn Al-Athīr, one of the Arab chroniclers, mentions that Saladin intended to lay siege to a Crusader castle in the area, but Saladins baggage train had been apparently mired. There is a small north of Tell es-Safi bordering farmland that in November might have been plowed up. The Egyptian chroniclers agree that the baggage had been delayed at a river crossing, Saladin was taken totally by surprise. His army was in disarray, part had been held up by the baggage train while another part of his force had scattered into raiding parties across the countryside. The horses were tired from the long march, some men had to hurry to collect their weapons from the baggage train

11.
Battle of Jacob's Ford
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The Battle of Jacobs Ford was a victory of the Muslim sultan Saladin over the Christian King of Jerusalem, Baldwin IV. Jacobs Ford is also known by the Latin name of Vadum Iacob, many scholars believe that Saladins reconquest of the Holy Land and Jerusalem in 1187 was heralded by this earlier victory. Saladin, one of the most famous Islamic rulers, was Sultan of Egypt and, by 1174, after seizing power in Syria, Saladin vowed to forge an Islamic empire around Jerusalem. Naturally, the end goal was to recapture the Holy City from the Crusaders, however, such a plan would take the Holy Land without major military conflict. Baldwin IV took control over the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the age of thirteen after the death of his father Amalric I in 1174, Baldwin was a staunch believer in Christianity and, as a result, Saladin’s biggest problem to overcome. Although Baldwin was a rich and powerful leader, he was stricken with leprosy at a young age. After approximately three years on the throne at Jerusalem, Baldwin was faced with his very first military challenge, Saladin invaded the Christian kingdom in approximately 1177 to rout the Crusaders. Although Saladin was almost twenty years older and more experienced than Baldwin, Baldwin and his Crusaders outwitted the Muslims at Mont Gisard on 25 November 1177. By the end of the battle, Saladin was forced to back to Egypt after narrowly escaping death. Although the victory resulted in losses for Baldwin’s armies, his image throughout the kingdom gained in strength. In fact, some Christians in the Near East had even come to believe that miracle of his victory appear as a sign of divine mandate. Jacob’s Ford is approximately one hundred miles north of Jerusalem at the Jordan River and was a key river crossing on one of the roads between Acre and Damascus. In the twelfth century, Baldwin and Saladin continually contested over the area on which Jacobs Ford was situated. As a bold move and as a result of his military victory at Mont Gisard, Baldwin decided to march to Jacob’s Ford. The king and his Crusaders theorized that such a fortification could protect Jerusalem from a northern invasion, between October 1178 and April 1179, Baldwin began the first stages of constructing his new line of defense, a fortification called Chastellet at Jacob’s Ford. While construction was in progress, Saladin became fully aware of the task he would have to overcome at Jacob’s Ford if he were to protect Syria and conquer Jerusalem. At the time, he was unable to stop the erection of Chastellet by military force because a portion of his troops were stationed in northern Syria. Consequently, the sultan turned to bribery and offered Baldwin 60,000 dinars to halt construction, Baldwin declined, but Saladin made a counter-offer of 100,000 dinars

12.
Siege of Kerak
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The Siege of Kerak took place in 1183, with Saladins forces attacking and being repelled from the Crusader stronghold. Kerak was the stronghold of Raynald of Châtillon, Lord of Oultrejordain,124 km south of Amman, the fortress was built in 1142 by Pagan the Butler, Lord of Montreal. While Raynald ruled, several truces existed between the Christian and Muslim states in the Holy Land, none of which he made any qualms about breaking, the last straw came in 1183 when he organized an expedition around the Red Sea. He captured the town of Aqaba, giving him a base of operations against Islams holiest city, Saladin, the leader of the Muslim forces, could not tolerate this and moved against Raynalds stronghold. The Muslims had sought to take Kerak for several years, at one point, nine catapults were bombarding the walls and inhabitants within. Inside the walls, a marriage was taking place. Humphrey IV of Toron, Raynalds stepson and heir, was to take the hand of Isabella of Jerusalem, as the wedding ceremonies continued, Saladin instructed his troops to avoid bombarding the young couples quarters, but pressure on Kerak continued. Messengers managed to escape the town and take word to the King, Baldwin immediately marched with a relief force, accompanied by his regent, Raymond III of Tripoli. Although suffering from leprosy since childhood, Baldwins determination to frustrate Saladins attempt was such that he led personally, the Christian forces arrived while Saladin was still struggling against the heavy fortifications. Knowing he risked being crushed between the army and the walls of Kerak, he lifted the siege. Saladin returned to Kerak again in 1184, with the same result, Kerak remained a Crusader stronghold and a symbol of the Wests grip in the region until falling to Muslim control in 1188. The next time the Crusaders had to contend with a major siege, the motion picture Kingdom of Heaven contains a fictional portrayal of the siege. In the film, knights under the command of Balian engaged the Ayyubids as they approached Kerak, the film also showed the siege not taking place, but King Baldwin IV and Saladin negotiating a settlement. Baldwin then punished Raynald for breaking the truce by attacking a Muslim caravan

13.
Battle of Cresson
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The Battle of Cresson was a small battle, fought on 1 May 1187 at the springs of Cresson, or Ain Gozeh, near Nazareth. It was a prelude to the defeat of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin two months later. The political situation in Jerusalem was tense because of rivalries between two branches of the royal house. Raymond III of Tripoli, who had previously been regent for the kingdom, refused to accept Guy of Lusignan as king, following the death of the child king, Baldwin V the previous year. Meanwhile, Saladin had sent a force towards Tiberias led by Muzaffar ad-Din Gökböri. Raymond III hoped Saladin would ally with him against Guy, and allowed this force to pass through Tiberias on 30 April, a second probably larger Ayyubid force, led by Saladins son Al Afdal, was at Al Qahwani and did not participate in the battle. Gerard reached Cresson on 1 May, as the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, a chronicle of the Third Crusade, records it, So Saladin assembled armed forces and marched violently on Palestine. He sent the emir of Edessa, Manafaradin, on ahead with 7,000 Turks to ravage the Holy Land. Now, when this Manafaradin advanced into the Tiberias region, he happened to encounter the master of the Temple, Gerard de Ridefort, in the unexpected battle which followed, he put the former to flight and killed the latter. The Muslims feigned a retreat, a tactic which should not have fooled Gerard, nevertheless, he ordered a charge, against Rogers advice. The Muslims easily repulsed a direct Christian attack, killing both the knights, and, later, the foot-soldiers. Gerard was wounded, but survived, however, almost all the others were killed, according to the Itinerarium, however, Gerard did not rashly engage the enemy, but was actually caught unaware and was the victim of an attack himself. Balian was still a day behind, and had stopped at Sebastea to celebrate a feast day. After reaching the castle of La Fève, where the Templars and Hospitallers had camped and he sent his squire Ernoul ahead to learn what had happened, and news of the disastrous battle soon arrived from the few survivors. Raymond heard about the battle as well and met the embassy at Tiberias, Raymond was finally willing to acknowledge Guy as king, but the damage to the kingdom was severe, and both Gerard and Raynald considered Raymond a traitor. However Guy, knowing that Saladins army was forming for a renewed assault on the kingdom, could not afford to let this internecine quarrel continue. Saladin gathered a larger army of 20,000 men, invaded the kingdom in June. The battle is mentioned in a number of contemporary chronicles and these accounts differ considerably, and have never been fully reconciled by historians

14.
Battle of Hattin
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The Battle of Hattin took place on July 4,1187, between the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the forces of the Ayyubid sultan Salah ad-Din, known in the West as Saladin. It is also known as the Battle of the Horns of Hattin, the Muslim armies under Saladin captured or killed the vast majority of the Crusader forces, removing their capability to wage war. As a direct result of the battle, Muslims once again became the eminent military power in the Holy Land, re-conquering Jerusalem and these Christian defeats prompted the Third Crusade, which began two years after the Battle of Hattin. The battle took place near Tiberias in present-day Israel, the battlefield, near the town of Hittin, had as its chief geographic feature a double hill beside a pass through the northern mountains between Tiberias and the road from Acre to the east. The Darb al-Hawarnah road, built by the Romans, served as the main east-west passage between the Jordan fords, the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean coast, open warfare was only prevented when Humphrey of Toron swore allegiance to Guy, ending the succession dispute. The Muslim chronicler Ali ibn al-Athir claimed that Raymond was in a state of rebellion against Guy. In the background of these divisions Saladin had become vizier of Egypt in 1169, had taken Damascus in 1174 and he controlled the entire Southern and Eastern flanks of the Crusader states. Through the use of propaganda he united his subjects under Sunni Islam, however, Saladin often made strategic truces with the Franks when there was a need to deal with political problems in the Muslim World, and one such truce was made in 1185. It was rumoured amongst the Franks that Raymond III of Tripoli had made a deal with Saladin under which Saladin would make him King of Jerusalem in return for peace and this rumour was echoed by Ibn al Athir, but it is unclear whether it was true. Raymond III was certainly reluctant to engage in battle with Saladin, in 1187 Reynald of Châtillon raided a Muslim caravan when the truce with Saladin was still in place, and some accounts claim that Saladins sister was raped during the attack. Saladin swore that he would kill Reynald, and sent his son Al-Afdal ibn Salah ad-Din to raid Frankish lands surrounding Acre, Gerard de Ridefort and the Templars engaged al Afdal in The Battle of the Springs of Cresson in May, where they were heavily defeated. The Templars lost around 150 knights and 300 footsoldiers, who had made up a part of the military of Jerusalem. Phillips states that the damage to Frankish morale and the scale of the losses should not be underestimated in contributing towards the defeat at Hattin, in July Saladin laid siege to Tiberias, where Raymond IIIs wife Eschiva was trapped. In spite of this Raymond argued that Guy should not engage Saladin in battle, the Knights Hospitaller also advised Guy not to provoke Saladin. However, Gerard de Ridefort advised Guy to advance against Saladin and this was a gamble on Guys part, as he left only a few knights to defend the city of Jerusalem. In late May Saladin assembled the largest army he had ever commanded and he inspected his forces at Tell-Ashtara before crossing the River Jordan on June 30. The opposing Crusader army amassed at La Saphorie, it consisted of around 20,000 men, including 1,200 knights from Jerusalem, though the army was smaller than Saladins it was still larger than those usually mustered by the Crusaders. After reconciling, Raymond and Guy met at Acre with the bulk of the crusader army

15.
Siege of Jerusalem (1187)
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The Siege of Jerusalem was a siege on the city of Jerusalem that lasted from September 20 to October 2,1187, when Balian of Ibelin surrendered the city to Saladin. Citizens wishing to leave paid a ransom, the defeat of Jerusalem signalled the end of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Europe responded in 1189 by launching the Third Crusade led by Richard the Lionheart, Philip Augustus, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, weakened by internal disputes, was defeated at the Battle of Hattin on 4 July 1187. Most of the nobility were taken prisoner, including King Guy, thousands of Muslim slaves were freed. By mid-September, Saladin had taken Acre, Nablus, Jaffa, Toron, Sidon, Beirut, the survivors of the battle and other refugees fled to Tyre, the only city able to hold out against Saladin, due to the fortuitous arrival of Conrad of Montferrat. In Tyre, Balian of Ibelin had asked Saladin for safe passage to Jerusalem in order to retrieve his wife Maria Comnena, Queen consort of Jerusalem and their family. Heraclius, who argued that he must stay for the sake of Christianity, offered to him of the oath. As the highest ranking lord remaining in Jerusalem, according to the chronicler Ibn al-Athir, Balian found the situation in Jerusalem dire. The city was filled with refugees fleeing Saladins conquests, with more arriving daily, there were fewer than fourteen knights in the whole city, so he created sixty new knights from the ranks of the squires and burgesses. He prepared for the siege by storing food and money. The armies of Syria and Egypt assembled under Saladin, and after a brief and unsuccessful siege of Tyre, negotiations were carried out between Saladin and Balian, through the mediation of Yusuf Batit, one of the Eastern Orthodox clergy. Saladins army was facing the Tower of David and the Damascus Gate and his archers continually pelted the ramparts with arrows. Siege towers/belfries were rolled up to the walls, but were pushed back each time, for six days, skirmishes were fought with little result. Saladins forces suffered casualties after each assault, while the Crusaders lost only a few men. On September 26, Saladin moved his camp to a different part of the city, the walls were constantly pounded by the siege engines, catapults, mangonels, petraries, Greek fire, crossbows, and arrows. A portion of the wall was mined, and it collapsed on September 29, the crusaders were unable to push Saladins troops back from the breach, but at the same time the Muslims could not gain entrance to the city. Soon there were only a few dozen knights and a handful of remaining men-at-arms capable of bearing arms and defending the wall, the civilians were in great despair. At Mount Calvary, women cropped their childrens hair, after immersing them chin-deep in basins of cold water and these penances were aimed at turning away Gods wrath from the city, but …Our Lord did not deign to hear the prayers or noise that was made in the city

16.
Siege of Tyre (1187)
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The Siege of Tyre took place from November 12,1187 to January 1,1188. An army commanded by Saladin made an assault on the city. After two months of struggle, Saladin dismissed his army and retreated to Acre. After the disastrous Battle of Hattin, much of the Holy Land had been lost to Saladin, the remnants of the crusader army flocked to Tyre, which was one of the major cities still in Christian hands. Reginald of Sidon was in charge of Tyre and was in the process of negotiating its surrender with Saladin, reginald left the city to refortify his castle at Belfort, and Conrad became the leader of the army. He immediately began to repair the defenses of the city, and he cut a trench across the mole that joined the city to the shore. The Muslim army arrived on November 12, and started the siege, the rest of the army arrived 13 days later. His bravery and skill were said to cause admiration in both the Christian and Muslim armies, and particularly in Saladin and it was said that Saladin offered him many riches if he would convert to Islam and fight in his army. Nevertheless, he refused and kept leading the Christian attacks against the Muslim army and it became clear to Saladin that only by winning at sea could he take the city. He summoned a fleet of 10 galleys commanded by a North African sailor named Abd al-Salam al-Maghribi, Muslim chroniclers claim that Al-Faris Bedrans incompetency led to the defeat. The remaining galleys were ordered to retire, given their low numbers, after this naval setback, Saladins forces made a final attempt to take the city, but they were defeated again, suffering heavy losses. After these events, Saladin summoned his emirs for a conference, the opinions were divided, but Saladin, seeing the state of his troops, decided to retire to Acre. The siege ended on January 1,1188, after the victory, Conrads prestige received a huge boost. For Saladin, it constituted a point in his career. It proved the incapacity of his army to sustain long sieges, for the crusaders, it was a very important victory because Tyre became a rallying-point for the future Christian revival during the Third Crusade. If Tyre had not held out, it is likely that the Third Crusade would have much less successful. 2 Jaroslav Folda, Crusader art in the Holy Land, from the Third Crusade to the fall of Acre 1187–1291 Stanley Lane-Poole, Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem

17.
Battle of Arsuf
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The Battle of Arsuf was a battle of the Third Crusade in which Richard I of England defeated the forces of Ayyubid leader Saladin. The battle took place just outside of Arsuf, when Saladin attacked Richards army when it was moving from Acre to Jaffa, following a series of harassing attacks by Saladins, battle was joined on the morning of 7 September 1191. Richards army successfully resisted attempts to disrupt its cohesion until the Hospitallers broke ranks and charged and he regrouped his army after its initial success, and led it to victory. The battle resulted in the area of southern Palestine, including the port of Jaffa. Saladin, whose objective was to prevent the recapture of Jerusalem. Richard organized the advance with attention to detail, a large part of the Egyptian fleet had been captured at the fall of Acre, and with no threat from this quarter he could march south along the coast with the sea always protecting his right flank. Mindful of the lessons of the disaster at Hattin, Richard knew that his armys greatest need was water, although pressed for time he proceeded at a relatively slow pace. He marched his army only in the morning before the heat of the day, making frequent rest stops, the fleet sailed down the coast in close support, a source of supplies and a refuge for the wounded. The infantry marched on the flank, covering the flanks of the horsemen. The outermost ranks of the infantry were composed of crossbowmen, on the seaward side was the baggage and also units of infantry being rested from the continuous harassment inflicted by Saladins forces. Richard wisely rotated his infantry units to keep them relatively fresh, though provoked and tormented by the skirmish tactics of Saladins archers, Richards generalship ensured that order and discipline were maintained under the most difficult of circumstances. Baha al-Din also described the difference in power between the Crusader crossbow and the bows of his own army, the Crusader armys pace was dictated by the infantry and baggage train, the Ayyubid army, being largely mounted, had the advantage of superior mobility. Efforts to burn crops and deny the countryside to the Frankish army were largely ineffective as it could be provisioned from the fleet. On 25 August the Crusader rearguard was crossing a defile when it was almost cut off, however, the Crusaders closed up so speedily that the Muslim soldiery was forced to flee. From 26 to 29 August Richards army had a respite from attack because while it hugged the coast and had round the shoulder of Mount Carmel. Saladin arrived in the vicinity of Caesarea before the Crusaders, who were on a longer road, from 30 August to 7 September Saladin was always within striking distance, and waiting for an opportunity to attack if the Crusaders exposed themselves. By early September, Saladin had realised that harassing the Frankish army with a portion of his troops was not going to stop its advance. In order to do this he needed to commit his army to a serious attack

18.
Battle of Jaffa (1192)
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The Battle of Jaffa took place during the Crusades, as one of a series of campaigns between the army of Sultan Saladin and the Crusader forces led by King Richard I of England. It was the battle of the Third Crusade, after which Saladin. The battle illustrated the determined spirit of Saladin and the courage and it was the final armed encounter between the two monarchs before the ratification of the Treaty of Jaffa brought the Crusade to an end. The battle ensured that the Crusader presence in the south of Palestine was secure, on September 7,1191, after the Battle of Arsuf, the Crusader army proceeded from Arsuf to Jaffa, which the Crusaders took and fortified. Jaffa, they hoped, would be the base of operations in a drive to reconquer Jerusalem itself, as the winter of 1191–1192 approached, sporadic negotiations between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin were taken up, though without any immediate result. In November of 1191 the Crusader army advanced inland towards Jerusalem, on the 12 December Saladin was forced by pressure from his emirs to disband the greater part of his army. Learning this, Richard pushed his army forward, spending Christmas at Latrun, the army then marched to Beit Nuba, only 12 miles from Jerusalem. Muslim morale in Jerusalem was so low that the arrival of the Crusaders would probably have caused the city to fall quickly, during the winter months, Richards men occupied and refortified Ascalon, whose fortifications had earlier been razed by Saladin. The spring of 1192 saw continued negotiations and further skirmishing between the opposing forces, the Crusader army made another advance on Jerusalem, coming within sight of the city before being forced to retreat once again because of dissension amongst its leaders. During this period, Richard began to receive disturbing news of the activities of his brother John, as the spring gave way to summer, it became evident that Richard would soon have to return to his own lands to safeguard his interests. By July 5,1192, Richard began his withdrawal from the Holy Land, having realized that Jerusalem would not be defensible if it were to be captured, he began the retreat of Crusader forces from hostile territory. The defending garrison, although taken by surprise, fought well before the odds against them proved too great, Saladins soldiers successfully stormed the walls after three days of bloody clashes, only Jaffas citadel held out and the remaining Crusaders managed to send word of their plight. Richard subsequently gathered an army, including a large contingent of Italian sailors. Upon seeing Muslim banners flying from the walls, he believed the town to be a lost cause, until a defender swam out to his flagship. Still in his sailors deck shoes, Richard leaped into the sea, the King again showed his personal bravery and martial prowess, leading fifty-four knights, a few hundred infantrymen, and about 2,000 Genoese and Pisan crossbowmen into battle. The Muslim army began to panic at the offensive launched by Richards newly arrived force, they feared it was. The English king fought in person at the forefront of his attack, many of the Christian prisoners who had surrendered earlier also seized their arms and resumed combat, for their captors were in such disarray that they were unable to stop them. Saladins fleeing army spilled out of Jaffa and escaped in a disorderly manner, on the early morning of August 4, Muslim troops massed around the walled town, concealing themselves in the fields and intending to attack at dawn the next day

19.
Levant
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The Levant is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean. The term Levant entered English in the late 15th century from French and it derives from the Italian Levante, meaning rising, implying the rising of the sun in the east. As such, it is equivalent to the Arabic term Mashriq. Eventually the term was restricted to the Muslim countries of Syria-Palestine, in 1581, England set up the Levant Company to monopolize commerce with the Ottoman Empire. The name Levant States was used to refer to the French mandate over Syria and this is probably the reason why the term Levant has come to be used synonymously with Syria-Palestine. Some scholars misunderstood the term thinking that it derives from the name of Lebanon, today the term is typically used in conjunction with prehistoric or ancient historical references. It does not include Anatolia, the Caucasus Mountains, or any part of the Arabian Peninsula proper, the Sinai Peninsula is sometimes included. The Levant has been described as the crossroads of western Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, and northeast Africa, the populations of the Levant share not only the geographic position, but cuisine, some customs, and a very long history. They are often referred to as Levantines, the term Levant, which appeared in English in 1497, originally meant the East in general or Mediterranean lands east of Italy. It is borrowed from the French levant rising, referring to the rising of the sun in the east, the phrase is ultimately from the Latin word levare, meaning lift, raise. Similar etymologies are found in Greek Ἀνατολή, in Germanic Morgenland, in Italian, in Hungarian Kelet, in Spanish and Catalan Levante and Llevant, most notably, Orient and its Latin source oriens meaning east, is literally rising, deriving from Latin orior rise. The notion of the Levant has undergone a process of historical evolution in usage, meaning. While the term Levantine originally referred to the European residents of the eastern Mediterranean region, it came to refer to regional native. The English Levant Company was founded in 1581 to trade with the Ottoman Empire, at this time, the Far East was known as the Upper Levant. In early 19th-century travel writing, the term sometimes incorporated certain Mediterranean provinces of the Ottoman empire, in 19th-century archaeology, it referred to overlapping cultures in this region during and after prehistoric times, intending to reference the place instead of any one culture. The French mandate of Syria and Lebanon was called the Levant states, today, Levant is the term typically used by archaeologists and historians with reference to the history of the region. Scholars have adopted the term Levant to identify the region due to it being a wider, yet relevant, archaeologists seeking a neutral orientation that is neither biblical nor national have used terms such as Levantine archaeology and archaeology of the Southern Levant. Two academic journals were launched, Journal of Levantine Studies, published by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and The Levantine Review

20.
First Crusade
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The First Crusade was the first of a number of crusades that attempted to capture the Holy Land, called by Pope Urban II in 1095. An additional goal became the principal objective—the Christian reconquest of the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. During the crusades, nobility, knights, peasants and serfs from many regions of Western Europe travelled over land and by sea, first to Constantinople and then on towards Jerusalem. The Crusaders arrived at Jerusalem, launched an assault on the city and they also established the crusader states of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa. The First Crusade was followed by the Second to the Ninth Crusades and it was also the first major step towards reopening international trade in the West since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The majority view is that it had elements of both in its nature, the origin of the Crusades in general, and particularly that of the First Crusade, is widely debated among historians. The confusion is due to the numerous armies in the first crusade. The similar ideologies held the armies to similar goals, but the connections were rarely strong, the Umayyad Caliphate had conquered Syria, Egypt, and North Africa from the predominantly Christian Byzantine Empire, and Hispania from the Visigothic Kingdom. In North Africa, the Umayyad empire eventually collapsed and a number of smaller Muslim kingdoms emerged, such as the Aghlabids, who attacked Italy in the 9th century. Pisa, Genoa, and the Principality of Catalonia began to battle various Muslim kingdoms for control of the Mediterranean Basin, exemplified by the Mahdia campaign and battles at Majorca and Sardinia. Essentially, between the years 1096 and 1101 the Byzantine Greeks experienced the crusade as it arrived at Constantinople in three separate waves, in the early summer of 1096, the first large unruly group arrived on the outskirts of Constantinople. This wave was reported to be undisciplined and ill-equipped as an army and this first group is often called the Peasants’ or People’s Crusade. It was led by Peter the Hermit and Walter Sans Avoir and had no knowledge of or respect for the wishes of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. The second wave was not under the command of the Emperor and was made up of a number of armies with their own commanders. Together, this group and the first wave numbered an estimated 60,000, the second wave was led by Hugh I, Count of Vermandois, the brother of King Philip I of France. Also among the wave were Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse. It was this wave of crusaders which later passed through Asia Minor, captured Antioch in 1098 and finally took Jerusalem 15 July 1099. ”The third wave, composed of contingents from Lombardy, France. At the western edge of Europe and of Islamic expansion, the Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula was well underway by the 11th century and it was intermittently ideological, as evidenced by the Codex Vigilanus compiled in 881

21.
Siege of Xerigordos
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The Siege of Xerigordon pitted 6,000 Germans of the Peoples Crusade under Reinald against the Turks commanded by Elchanes, general of Kilij Arslan I, the Seljuk Sultan of Rûm. The crusader raiding party captured the Turkish fort of Xerigordon, about four days march from Nicaea, Elchanes arrived three days later and besieged the crusaders. The defenders had no water supply, and after eight days of siege, some of the crusaders converted to Islam, while others who refused were killed. The army of the Peoples Crusade landed in Asia Minor on August 6,1096, the young Sultan, Kilij Arslan I, was in the middle of a military campaign to the east, fighting the Danishmend emirate. While waiting for the crusader army, the disorganized People’s Crusade army began to attack the villages surrounding Nicaea. The Norman raiding party returned unhindered many times with their booty, Reinald led 6,000 Germans, including 200 knights, on similar raids. Reinald was unsatisfied with the pillaging results near Nicaea and went farther to Xerigordon, on September 18,1096, Reinald easily defeated the Xerigordon garrison. Kilij Arslan ordered his general, Elchanes, to deal with the raiding parties with his troops. Elchanes arrived three days after Reinald occupied Xerigordon, on September 21 and besieged the crusaders tightly, the speed of the Turkish mounted troops surprised the Germans, they had not expected to be besieged and were unprepared and without adequate supplies. Some accounts mentioned that Turks sent two spies to the Crusaders camp at Civetot to make them think that Xerigordon was still safe, and even that Nicaea had been conquered by Reinald. Other accounts mentioned that Crusader leaders on the field were forced by their troops to advance, for eight days, the Crusaders resisted thirst and a rain of arrows and smoke from the Turks. After, the leader of the Germans offered to surrender and to fight for the Turks, the fort surrendered on September 29,1096. Some of the Crusaders who converted to Islam became slaves, while others who refused to abandon their faith were killed, there are various accounts on Reinalds fate. Kilij Arslan I became more confident and sent his army to ambush the People’s Crusade army at the Battle of Civetot en route to Nicaea

22.
Siege of Nicaea
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The Siege of Nicaea took place from May 14 to June 19,1097, during the First Crusade. Nicaea, located on the shore of Lake İznik, had been captured from the Byzantine Empire by the Seljuk Turks in 1081. In 1096, the Peoples Crusade, the first stage of the First Crusade, had plundered the surrounding the city. As a result, Sultan Kilij Arslan I initially felt that the wave of crusaders were not a threat. He left his family and his treasury behind in Nicaea and went east to fight the Danishmends for control of the Melitene, the crusaders began to leave Constantinople at the end of April 1097. They arrived on May 6, severely short on food, but Bohemond arranged for food to be brought by land and they put the city to siege beginning on May 14, assigning their forces to different sections of the walls, which were well-defended with 200 towers. Bohemond camped on the side of the city, Godfrey on the south. On May 16, the Turkish defenders sallied out to attack the crusaders, the Turks sent messages to Kilij Arslan begging him to return, and when he realized the strength of the crusaders he quickly turned back. An advance party was defeated by troops under Raymond and Robert of Flanders on May 20, and on May 21, losses were heavy on both sides but in the end the Sultan retreated, despite the pleas of the Nicaean Turks. The rest of the crusaders arrived throughout the rest of May, with Robert Curthose, meanwhile Raymond and Adhemar built a large siege engine, which was rolled up to the Gonatas Tower in order to engage the defenders on the walls while miners mined the tower from below. The tower was damaged but no progress was made. Byzantine emperor Alexios I chose not to accompany the crusaders, but marched out behind them and made his camp at nearby Pelecanum. From there, he sent boats, rolled over the land, to help the crusaders blockade Lake Ascanius, the boats arrived on June 17, under the command of Manuel Boutoumites. The general Tatikios was also sent, with 2,000 foot soldiers, Alexios had instructed Boutoumites to secretly negotiate the surrender of the city without the crusaders knowledge. This was done, and on June 19 the Turks surrendered to Boutoumites, when the crusaders discovered what Alexios had done, they were quite angry, as they had hoped to plunder the city for money and supplies. Boutoumites, however, was named dux of Nicaea and forbade the crusaders from entering in groups larger than 10 men at a time, Boutoumites also expelled the Turkish generals, whom he considered just as untrustworthy. Kilij Arslans family went to Constantinople and were released without ransom. Alexios gave the money, horses, and other gifts

23.
Battle of Dorylaeum (1097)
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The Battle of Dorylaeum took place during the First Crusade on July 1,1097, between the crusaders and the Seljuk Turks, near the city of Dorylaeum in Anatolia. The crusaders had left Nicaea on June 26, with a deep distrust of the Byzantines, on June 29, they learnt that the Turks were planning an ambush near Dorylaeum. Contemporary figures place this number between 25, 000-30,000, more recent estimates are between 6,000 and 8,000 men, fulcher of Chartres gives the exaggerated number of 360,000. In addition to numbers of noncombatants, Bohemonds force probably numbered about 10,000. Military figures of the time often imply perhaps several men-at-arms per knight, on the evening of June 30, after a three-day march, Bohemonds army made camp in a meadow on the north bank of the river Thymbres, near the ruined town of Dorylaeum. On July 1, Bohemonds force was surrounded outside Dorylaeum by Kilij Arslan, Godfrey and Raymond had separated from the vanguard at Leuce, and the Turkish army attacked at dawn, taking Bohemonds army entirely by surprise, shooting arrows into the camp. Bohemonds knights had quickly mounted but their sporadic counterattacks were unable to deter the Turks, while this formed a battle line and sheltered the more vulnerable men-at-arms and noncombatants, it also gave the Turks free rein to maneuver on the battlefield. The Turkish mounted archers attacked in their usual style - charging in, shooting their arrows, the archers did little damage to the heavily armoured knights, but they inflicted heavy casualties on the horses and unarmoured foot soldiers. Bohemond had sent messengers to the other Crusader army and now struggled to hold on until help arrived, just after midday, Godfrey arrived with a force of 50 knights, fighting through the Turkish lines to reinforce Bohemond. Through the day small groups of reinforcements arrived, some killed by the Turks, as the Crusader losses mounted, the Turks became more aggressive and the Crusader army found itself forced from the marshy banks of the river into the shallows. Adhemars force fell on the Turkish camp, and attacked the Turks from the rear, the crusaders did indeed become rich, at least for a short time, after capturing Kilij Arslans treasury. The Turks fled and Arslan turned to other concerns in his eastern territory and they also took the male Greek children from the region extending from Dorylaeum to Iconium, some of whom were sent as slaves to Persia. On the other hand, the crusaders were allowed to march virtually unopposed through Anatolia on their way to Antioch and it took almost three months to cross Anatolia in the heat of the summer, and in October they began the siege of Antioch. John Doukas re-established Byzantine rule in Chios, Rhodes, Smyrna, Ephesus, Sardis and this success is ascribed by Alexios daughter Anna to his policy and diplomacy, but by the Latin historians of the crusade to his treachery and falseness

24.
Siege of Antioch
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The Siege of Antioch took place during the First Crusade in 1097 and 1098. The first siege, by the crusaders against the Muslim-held city, Antioch lay in a strategic location on the crusaders route to Palestine. Supplies, reinforcements and retreat could all be controlled by the city, anticipating that it would be attacked, the Muslim governor of the city, Yaghi-Siyan, began stockpilling food and sending requests for help. The Byzantine walls surrounding the city presented an obstacle to its capture. The crusaders arrived outside the city on 21 October and began the siege, the garrison sortied unsuccessfully on 29 December. After stripping the area of food, the crusaders were forced to look farther afield for supplies, opening themselves to ambush. On the 31 December, a force of 20,000 crusaders encountered an army led by Duqaq of Damascus heading to Antioch. As the siege went on, supplies dwindled and in early 1098 one in seven of the crusaders was dying from starvation, a second relief force, this time under the command of Ridwan of Aleppo, advanced towards Antioch, arriving on 9 February. Like the army of Duqaq before, it was defeated, Antioch was captured on 3 June, although the citadel remained in the hands of the Muslim defenders. Kerbogha began the siege, against the crusaders who had occupied Antioch. The second siege ended when the crusaders exited the city to engage Kerboghas army in battle, on seeing the Muslim army routed, the defenders remaining in the citadel surrendered. There are a number of sources relating to the Siege of Antioch. There are four accounts, those of Fulcher of Chartres, Peter Tudebode, and Raymond of Aguilers. Nine letters survive relating to or from the army, five of them were written while the siege was underway and another in September. While there are many sources the number of people on crusade is unclear because they fluctuated regularly, lying on the slopes of the Orontes Valley, in 1097 Antioch covered more than 3.5 square miles and was encircled by walls studded by 400 towers. The river ran along the northern wall before entering Antioch from the northwest. Mount Silpius, crested by a citadel, was the Antiochs highest point, there were six gates through which the city could be entered, three along the northern wall, and one on each of the south, east, and west sides. The valley slopes made approaching from the south, east, or west difficult, the citys defences dated from the reign of the Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century

25.
Siege of Jerusalem (1099)
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The Siege of Jerusalem took place from June 7 to July 15,1099, during the First Crusade. The climax of the First Crusade, the siege saw the Crusaders seize Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate. After the successful siege of Antioch in June 1098, the Crusaders remained in the area for the rest of the year, the papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy had died, and Bohemond of Taranto had claimed Antioch for himself. Baldwin of Boulogne remained in Edessa, captured earlier in 1098, there was dissent among the princes over what to do next, Raymond of Toulouse, frustrated, left Antioch to capture the fortress at Maarrat al-Numan in the Siege of Maarat. By the end of the year the minor knights and infantry were threatening to march to Jerusalem without them. Eventually, on January 13,1099 Raymond began the south, down the coast of the Mediterranean, followed by Robert of Normandy and Bohemonds nephew Tancred. On their way the Crusaders besieged Arqa but failed to capture it, therefore, he expelled all of Jerusalems Christian inhabitants. Further march towards Jerusalem met no resistance, on 7 June, the crusaders reached Jerusalem, which had been recaptured from the Seljuqs by the Fatimids only the year before. Many Crusaders wept upon seeing the city they had journeyed so long to reach. As with Antioch the crusaders put the city to a siege, in which the crusaders themselves probably suffered more than the citizens of the city, due to the lack of food and water around Jerusalem. The city was well-prepared for the siege, and the Fatimid governor Iftikhar ad-Daula had expelled most of the Christians, of the estimated 5,000 knights who took part in the Princes Crusade, only about 1,500 remained, along with another 12,000 healthy foot-soldiers. Early in the siege, some low-class knights claimed to have been visited by Adhemar, the papal regate for the crusade and they claimed that this was a Battle of Jericho situation, and that he instructed them to march around the city walls barefoot. They did so for a few days, singing holy chants, after which, Peter the Hermit held religious sermons in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and on the Mount of Olives, sending the crusading knights lost into religious zeal. It was at time that they were ready for a siege. A direct assault on the walls on June 13 was a failure, without water or food, both men and animals were quickly dying of thirst and starvation and the crusaders knew time was not on their side. Coincidentally, soon after the first assault, two Genoese galleys sailed into the port at Jaffa, the crusaders also began to gather wood from Samaria in order to build siege engines. They were still short on food and water, and by the end of June there was news that a Fatimid army was marching north from Egypt, the prime need of the crusaders was for ladders and siege towers to scale the walls of Jerusalem. The Egyptian Fatimid garrison had cleared the area of trees

26.
Battle of Ascalon
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The Battle of Ascalon took place on August 12,1099 shortly after the capture of Jerusalem, and is often considered the last action of the First Crusade. The crusader army led by Godfrey of Bouillon defeated and drove off the numerically-superior Fatimid army, Jerusalem was captured from the Fatimids on July 15,1099, after a long siege, and immediately the crusaders learned that a Fatimid army was on its way to besiege them. Godfrey of Bouillon was named Defender of the Holy Sepulchre on July 22, Fatimid ambassadors arrived to order the crusaders to leave Jerusalem, but they were ignored. When the Egyptian presence was confirmed, they marched out as well the next day, near Ramla, they met Tancred and Godfreys brother Eustace, who had left to capture Nablus earlier in the month. At the head of the army, Arnulf carried the relic of the Cross, the Fatimids were led by vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah, who commanded perhaps as many as 50,000 troops. His army consisted of Seljuk Turks, Arabs, Persians, Armenians, Kurds and he was intending to besiege the crusaders in Jerusalem, although he had brought no siege machinery with him, he did however have a fleet, also assembling in the port of Ascalon. The precise number of crusaders is unknown, but the number given by Raymond of Aguilers is 1,200 knights and 9,000 infantry, the highest estimate is 20,000 men but this is surely impossible at this stage of the crusade. On August 11 the crusaders found oxen, sheep, camels, according to captives taken by Tancred in a skirmish near Ramla, the animals were there to encourage the crusaders to disperse and pillage the land, making it easier for the Fatimids to attack. However, al-Afdal did not yet know the crusaders were in the area and was not expecting them. In any case, these animals marched with them the next morning exaggerating the appearance of their army, on the morning of the 12th, crusader scouts reported the location of the Fatimid camp and the army marched towards it. According to most accounts, the Fatimids were caught unprepared and the battle was short, the two main lines of battle fought each other with arrows until they were close enough to fight hand-to-hand with spears and other hand weapons. The Ethiopians attacked the centre of the line, and the Fatimid vanguard was able to outflank the crusaders and surround their rearguard. Despite his numerical superiority, al-Afdals army was hardly as strong or dangerous as the Seljuk armies that the crusaders had encountered previously, the battle seems to have been over before the Fatimid heavy cavalry was prepared to join it. Al-Afdal left behind his camp and its treasures, which were captured by Robert, crusader losses are unknown, but the Egyptians lost about 10–12,000 men. The crusaders spent the night in the camp, preparing for another attack. They took as much plunder as they could, including the Standard and al-Afdals personal tent and they returned to Jerusalem on August 13, and after much celebration Godfrey and Raymond both claimed Ascalon. When the garrison learned of the dispute they refused to surrender, after the battle, almost all of the remaining crusaders returned to their homes in Europe, their vows of pilgrimage having been fulfilled. There were perhaps only a few hundred left in Jerusalem by the end of the year

27.
Crusade of 1101
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The Crusade of 1101 was a minor crusade of three separate movements, organized in 1100 and 1101 in the successful aftermath of the First Crusade. It is also called the Crusade of the Faint-Hearted due to the number of participants who joined this crusade after having turned back from the First Crusade. Calls for reinforcements from the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem, and Pope Paschal II, successor to Pope Urban II and he especially urged those who had taken the crusade vow but had never departed, and those who had turned back while on the march. As in the first crusade, the pilgrims and soldiers did not leave as a part of one large army, in September 1100, a large group of Lombards left from Milan. These were mostly untrained peasants, led by Anselm IV, Archbishop of Milan, when they reached the territory of the Byzantine Empire, they pillaged it recklessly, and Byzantine emperor Alexios I escorted them to a camp outside Constantinople. This did not satisfy them, and they made their way inside the city where they pillaged the Blachernae palace, the Lombards were quickly ferried across the Bosporus and made their camp at Nicomedia, to wait for reinforcements. Joining them at Nicomedia was Raymond IV of Toulouse, one of the leaders of the First Crusade who was now in the service of the emperor. He was appointed leader, and a Byzantine force of Pecheneg mercenaries was sent out with them under the command of General Tzitas. This group marched out at the end of May, towards Dorylaeum, following the route taken by Raymond, after capturing Ancyra on June 23,1101, and returning it to Alexios, the crusaders turned north. They briefly besieged the heavily garrisoned city of Gangra, and then continued north to attempt to capture the Turkish-controlled city of Kastamonu, however, they came under attack from the Seljuq Turks who harassed them for weeks, and a foraging party was destroyed in July. However, the Seljuqs, under Kilij Arslan I, realizing that disunity was the cause of their inability to stop the First Crusade, had now allied with both the Danishmends and Ridwan of Aleppo, in early August the crusaders met this combined Muslim army at Mersivan. The crusaders organized into five divisions, the Burgundians, Raymond and the Byzantines, the Germans, the French, the Turks nearly destroyed the crusaders’ army near the mountains of Paphlagonia at Mersivan. The land was well-suited to the Turks—dry and inhospitable for their enemy, it was open, the battle took place over several days. On the first day, the Turks cut off the crusading armies’ advances, the next day, Duke Conrad led his Germans in a raid that failed miserably. Not only did fail to open the Turkish lines, they were unable to return to the main crusader army and had to take refuge in a nearby stronghold. This meant that they were cut off supplies, aid. The third day was quiet, with little or no serious fighting taking place, but on the fourth day. The crusaders inflicted heavy losses on the Turks, but the attack was a failure by the end of the day, Kilij Arslan was joined by Ridwan of Aleppo and other powerful Danishmend princes

28.
Battle of Ramla (1105)
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The third Battle of Ramla took place on 27 August 1105 between the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Fatimids of Egypt. The town of Ramla lay on the road from Jerusalem to Ascalon, from Ascalon the Fatimid vizier, Al-Afdal Shahanshah, launched almost annual attacks into the newly founded Crusader kingdom from 1099 to 1107. Of the three battles the Crusaders fought at Ramla early in the century, the third was the most bloody. Egyptian armies of the period relied on masses of Sudanese bowmen supported by Arab, whereas the Crusaders developed a healthy respect for the harass and surround tactics of the Turkish horse archers, they tended to discount the effectiveness of the Egyptian armies. While overconfidence led to a Crusader disaster at the battle of Ramla. The Franks never, until the reign of Saladin, feared the Egyptian as they did the armies from Muslim Syria and Mesopotamia, as at Ramla in 1101, in 1105 the Crusaders had both cavalry and infantry under the leadership of Baldwin I. At the third battle, however, the Egyptians were reinforced by a Seljuk Turkish force from Damascus, including mounted archery, after they withstood the initial Frankish cavalry charge the battle raged for most of the day. He vanquished the Turks when they were becoming a threat to his rear. Despite the victory the Egyptians continued to make raids into the Kingdom of Jeruselum with some reaching the walls of Jerusalem itself before being pushed back. The next major engagement between Fatimids and Crusaders was the Battle of Yibneh in 1123, Dupuy, R. E. and T. N. Dupuy, eds. New York, Harper & Row,1977, new York, Barnes & Noble Books,1995

29.
Siege of Sidon
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The Siege of Sidon was an event in the aftermath of the First Crusade. The coastal city of Sidon was captured by the forces of Baldwin I of Jerusalem and Sigurd I of Norway, with assistance from the Ordelafo Faliero, in the summer of 1110 a Norwegian fleet of 60 ships arrived in the Levant under the command of King Sigurd. Arriving in Acre he was received by Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem, together they made a journey to the river Jordan, after which Baldwin asked for help in capturing Muslim-held ports on the coast. Baldwins army besieged the city by land, while the Norwegian came by sea, a naval force was needed to prevent assistance from the Fatimid fleet at Tyre. Repelling it was only made possible with the fortunate arrival of a Venetian fleet. The city fell after 47 days, the Icelandic skald Einarr Skúlason gives the following account. By order of Baldwin and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Ghibbelin of Arles, the Lordship of Sidon was created and given to Eustace Grenier, later a constable of the Kingdom of Jerusalem